


you called me pretty (& i didn't even flinch).

by zohh



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 16:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6761131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zohh/pseuds/zohh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her heart freezes and thaws and burns all in one second.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you called me pretty (& i didn't even flinch).

**Author's Note:**

> (Hi, hello, I feel like it's important for readers to know that I am from the U.S. and know v little about England, okay, thank you, goodbye.)

The first time she hears it, she’s huddled against her mother and sister, clothes damp and sagging off of her thinning body. A tall, spindly man in a uniform bends down and laughs, his mouth spreading wide apart.

“My, my, what a pretty face we have here,” he says, bringing a hand up to grip her chin between his thumb and forefinger.

Patsy doesn’t say anything. He continues to grin at her, hand still on her chin, until another man in a uniform comes by and says something to him in Japanese. The spindly man removes his hand and stands, winking at her before walking away.

Her mother turns to her and gently wipes her face with her hands and her sister squeezes her arm. Patsy looks down at the ground as a shiver goes down her spine.

*

Years later when she’s living in England, she’s walking down the street towards the candy shop, money that her father gave her clanging together in the pocket of her dress with each step she takes.

He gave her two sixpence pieces in the morning and told her to buy as much licorice as the shop would sell her. Patsy smiles as she walked past the other shops and people milling about on the street. Her father loved licorice, and while the taste wasn’t something she enjoyed (she would much prefer a lolly or a bit of chocolate), she would eat one or two pieces while they sat at the dining room table together, and her father would read aloud the headlines of the evening paper in different voices; their laughter would fill the entire house to the brim.

A few minutes later, she leaves the shop with her pocket lighter and a paper bag full of sweets. She rounds a corner, bypassing a mother pushing a pram, the hem of her dress swaying beneath her knees.

“Hey there, pretty.”

Patsy stops in her tracks and looks around. There’s a young man with sandy hair leaning against the brick wall of an abandoned building, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

“I said hey,” he says again, pushing off of the wall and taking a drag of his cigarette.

Patsy tightens her hold on the paper bag and looks at him but doesn’t say anything.

“Aw, pretty girl doesn’t wanna’ talk? I don’t bite, promise.”

Patsy purses her lips and turns on her heel to keep walking. She’s one step away when she feels a hand on her shoulder.

“C’mon, pretty girl,” the sandy-haired man says, his voice lower than before.

She shrugs him off and walks faster. She glances back and sees the man throw his cigarette to the ground, stomping on it with his toe and mouthing an insult that she can’t hear.

*

It’s her third week of training at the London when a new doctor takes over the ward she’s been working in. She’s completely and utterly exhausted, but she knows that this is only the beginning of a lifelong career so she pushes through it, trying her best to be the most prompt and efficient nurse on the male surgical ward.

Doctor Harold is an older gentleman with more grey than brown in his hair and the bowties he wears always seem to be crooked (which leaves Patsy to believe that perhaps he doesn’t have a wife to straighten his ties for him, but she tries not to judge).

She’s waiting at the end of the hallway, her shift over, for the doctor to formally tell her that she can leave for the day. Despite the exhaustion seeping from every part of her body, Patsy stands firmly, arms folding and hands clasped at the front of her uniform.

“Ah, Nurse Mount!” Doctor Harold walks up to her jovially, hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

Patsy smiles politely back at him. “Well, sir, my shift has finished, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything else from me before I left.”

“No worries, no worries,” he says. “You have performed your duties excellently today. You are coming up to make a fine nurse.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” Patsy says, a fluttering feeling bouncing around her chest and stomach.

Doctor Harold steps closer to her. “But I must ask, Nurse Mount. What’s a pretty girl like you doing here? Surely some man must have tried to sweep you up,” his voice is low, almost a whisper, and Patsy can feel his breath on her cheek.

She turns her head and clears her throat. “No, sir.”

He extends his arm so that his hand is laying flat against the small of her back. She flinches. He doesn’t notice.

“Well then, Nurse Mount. Well then.”

“I should be going,” Patsy says, her hands clenched together. She walks out of the hallway, her footsteps light and brisk.

*

The nurses on male surgical don’t all work the same shifts. Sometimes Patsy finds that, even after working at the London for two months now, there are still nurses that she has never seen before.

But this nurse, the nurse with the brown hair and the light eyes and the dimples and the astonishingly positive personality, is one that Patsy has seen on more than one occasion.

To be honest, after the first time Patsy saw her in the ward, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. At first, it bothered Patsy. She was just another nurse, after all, and she had only seen her once from across the hallway.

But then she saw her again. And then a third time.

It was all Patsy could do to not freeze in place any time this nurse, this random nurse, walked past her. She hated it (but at the same time, she didn’t, and she hated that, too).

It only took five different across-the-hallway encounters for the two to actually, properly meet.

“I don’t think we’ve been acquainted,” Patsy says before she can stop herself.

“Oh!’ The other nurse pauses outside of an exam room. “No, you’re right,” she says lightly. “I don’t think we have.” She stops closer to Patsy and extends her arm. “I’m Delia.”

Patsy takes her hand and shakes it. “Patience. Or, well, Patsy, really.” She fumbles with her words, letting go of Delia’s hand.

“Patience,” Delia says, tilting her head. She smiles and Patsy can see the slight indents in her cheeks and her heart freezes and thaws and burns all in one second.

“That’s a pretty name,” Delia finally says after a beat passes between them.

Patsy’s breath hitches in her throat but all she can do is stare at Delia’s smile.

*

She had never really minded coming back to Nonnatus House late. The hours of district midwifery varied much more than the hours she had back at the London, but after over a year of living at Nonnatus, she knew she would never go back. Midwifery was uplifting and made her feel good about the work she was doing, and she had made better friends and connections living in Poplar than she had anywhere else.

Usually the house was still and quiet on the nights she came back late, and she would slip upstairs and get ready for bed without causing Trixie or any of the other nurses or nuns to wake.

It’s quite a surprise to her when she walks into the house and finds Delia in the kitchen, pouring milk into a pot on the stove. Her hearth beats inside her chest like a thousand drums at the sight, and her hands fall easily into place onto Delia’s arm and shoulder.

She pushes a part of Delia’s hair over her shoulder and says, “D’you know, Deels, my whole life I never once had anyone wait up for me.”

Delia smiles, talking, and slowly nudges Patsy across the kitchen and against the counter. “While you were out, I was thinking, ‘I’m gonna’ unpin her hair, let it fall down to her shoulders and run my hands through it, but you have gone so mad with the lacquer that I could pull out every Kirby grip and the beehive wouldn’t budge.”

Patsy laughs, her head tilting, and Delia runs a hand up and down her arm.

It’s not that bad,” she says defensively.

Delia brings her hand up and pokes at the mound of hair on Patsy’s head.

“Okay, okay,” Patsy says, surrendering. “I guess you’ve made a point. I suppose I can…ease up on the hair product.”

“It’s just simply amazing that you can go a whole day, deliver God-knows how many babies, and still look positively radiant when you come back home late into the night. No one person should have that kind of power, Pats.”

Patsy shakes her head, still laughing quietly. Her hands cling to Delia’s hips before she brings her arms to wrap loosely around her waist.

Delia closes her mouth and looks up, directly into Patsy’s eyes.

“What?”

With a content sigh, Delia whispers, “You’re so pretty, Patience Mount.”

Patsy’s heart begins to thump again, and without question, without hesitation, she leans her head forward and closes the gap between them.

**Author's Note:**

> I was holding my heart in the palms of my nervous hand,  
> my heart had 200 broken windows, glass covering the floor,  
> and amazing light in almost every room
> 
> My heart was beating like a pillow fight.  
> Feathers were flying everywhere  
> I couldn’t stop crying for all those birds,  
> I could not stop crying
> 
> I planted my heart in the raised bed in your bedroom,  
> Pansies bloomed all night.  
> You called me “pretty” and I didn’t flinch.
> 
> (Pansies, Andrea Gibson)


End file.
